


I Don't Love You (Like I Loved You Yesterday)

by The_lazy_eye



Series: Be Still, Young Heart [1]
Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blend of AWAE and AOGG, F/M, Post Season 3, courting, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23252110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_lazy_eye/pseuds/The_lazy_eye
Summary: "Please say yes."
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Series: Be Still, Young Heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696243
Comments: 48
Kudos: 150





	I Don't Love You (Like I Loved You Yesterday)

“No.”

The word echoes around the empty space of the porch, knocking off of the siding of the house, the gating of the fence, the empty chairs.

It echoes in one ear and right out the other.

“What?”

“You heard me. I said no.”

“I don’t –” He starts, but doesn’t finish. His head suddenly swims, words jumbling together. Everything he had planned to say next was gone, lost to the now murky sea of his mind. For a second, he can’t breathe. How can such pure air feel like anchors inside his lungs?

It takes a moment for him to be able to gulp down enough air to speak and even then, it comes out like a whisper.

“Anne?”

“I think you should go.”

She turns to go inside, door slamming behind her as she leaves him floundering in the darkness.

It takes him another moment to find himself and then his legs are carrying him into Green Gables, giving chase after her through the house.

“Anne!”

“Go away, Gil!” She shouts and he traces her voice back to the kitchen. She’s fussing over something on the stove but he pays no mind, crowding into her space and forcing her to look up at him. “I said go. I don’t know why you keep making me repeat myself.”

He can’t help the brazen laugh that comes out. “You can’t – what? You just – and I. You didn’t – _Anne_.” He trips over his words, unable to form any train of coherent thought. Her eyes are burning into his, twin flames of grey.

“I didn’t _what_? Have I not made myself perfectly clear in my request? Please, just leave.” She turns away from him, fiddling with the pot, probably trying to set up tea for the night.

He almost goes, tempted by the pain blossoming in his chest. Leaving now would be a balm to the wound, staying will only open it further. But he can’t bring himself to leave. There are too many questions burning in the back of his throat and their history of miscommunication weighs against him. Leaving now would only be a temporary fix.

“This has to be a joke. Please, tell me you’re joking.”

“In what ways? I said I will not marry you, Gilbert, and I won’t. There’s no joke to be had.”

“I don’t understand. Why won’t you? I thought things have been going well between us. Have they not? What have I misunderstood?” The questions roll of his tongue quicker than he can form them in his own mind. None of this makes any sense to him. Not even minutes ago they were walking arm in arm, laughing into the warm summer breeze. Now, she grinds his heart beneath the heel of her boot without so much as glancing over.

“I won’t because I said I won’t. Now, if you’ll be so kind, _goodnight_.” There’s something final in her voice, something so Anne that its capable of ending discussions with near any person.

He’s not just any person, though.

“That’s hardly an answer.”

“it’s as much of an answer as you’re going to get.”

“Anne –”

“Is this not sufficient for you? Do you not take _no_ for an answer, Mr. Blythe? Is this how you behave when someone rejects you?”

Something about her words stokes a fire inside of him. Not the kind he’s so used to feeling when it comes to her, but something bigger, something angrier. It rages on inside his belly, licking up into his lungs and throat until its poised on the tip of his tongue.

“I take no perfectly fine, Ms. Shirley,” He counters, making sure to use her proper name as she had used his. Not for a second does he doubt it was meant to wound him. To insult their intimacy. “What I don’t take very well is being tossed aside by the one person I care the most about.”

“Nonsense,” She brushes past him, walking around to the far side of the kitchen and putting an entire universe of space between them.

“Nonsense is you!” He shouts, “What am I supposed to think right now? I’ve been courting you for months, Anne. I love you, and I thought you felt the same, except right when I lay it all out on a silver platter for you, you toss it all aside!”

She doesn’t flinch at the raise of his voice. She hardly even blinks, almost as though she’s been expecting it.

“I never asked you to lay anything out!” She shouts, “You just assumed that’s where this was going. Have we ever talked about marriage? Have we ever talked about family? All of these things,” She gestures wildly between them, “They’re just what people expect us to do.”

“This is what courting is! I didn’t think we needed to talk about it because –”

“That’s your problem right there,” She cuts, “You didn’t think! You never stopped to ask me what I want!”

“Were your letters not clear? _I miss you, gilbert. I’m counting down the days until we can be reunited.”_ He recites the lines from memory. Letters he had read over and over to soothe the ache in his chest while they were apart. “Were your kisses not clear?” Memories of his lips of hers invade his mind. Times when she’d run her hands through the hairs at the nape of his neck; times when he’d smiled into her mouth, thrilled to be able to call Anne Shirley his beloved.

At once, he’s overwhelmed by the need to know what’s real and what’s been fake. If he’d misunderstood her here, had he misread everything?

“All of this, what has it been, then? Have you just been stringing me along for the thrill of it?”

“What?” She shrieks, “How could you _think_ that?”

“How could I? How could _you_?” When she doesn’t answer quick enough, he keeps going. “Tell me, is there another? Is there some dark eyed man out there who has swept your heart away right from under my nose? Have you been sneaking off behind my back?”

At his words, she grabs a cup from the table and hurls it toward him. It misses by a foot and shatters against the cupboard behind Gilbert’s head, the crash of it reminiscent of thunder in a nasty storm.

“Oh, that’s rich!” She laughs, but it isn’t the same one he fell in love with. This one is bitter and lifeless. It drains whatever sense he had left, voiding him of body and blood. “Coming from the same man who courted another before me.”

“That’s not fair and you know it,” He seethes. She’s taking cheap shots and he can’t help rising to match her, boiling over at the seams.

“Oh, is it not? Accusing me of being unfaithful is the pot calling the kettle black.”

“I was _never_ unfaithful, Anne. I broke off things with Winifred weeks before we began courting.” The old memory cuts his tongue, almost making him bleed out onto the floorboards. His voice is hardly steady when he says, “And if you remember correctly, I still believed your love was unrequited when I did so. Perhaps I was right in thinking so.”

He means the last words to cut her as deep as she’s cut him. Judging by the look on her face, it’s worked. And angry blush creeps up her cheeks as her eyes darken to something indescribable.

“You’re a fool,” She says. It should be an insult but it sounds like a plea. It’s soft and desperate in her own way, hidden behind a thinly veiled layer of anger.

“Tell me you don’t love me.”

“Gilbert Blythe,” She starts, but he cuts in before she can get any farther.

“Say it, Anne. Tell me you don’t love me.”

She doesn’t move, doesn’t say a single word.

“Say it and I’ll go. I’ll walk right out that door and you’ll never hear a word of this again.” He pauses, giving her room to speak but she doesn’t. Slowly, as if trying not to spook an animal, he steps toward her. “This can all just be a bad dream.”

The fight drains out of him, anger being replaced by stinging desperation.

Slowly, _so slowly_ , he inches forward until he’s close enough to spell her perfume. The lavender wafts up and invades his senses, almost making him forget what he was doing in the first place. He’s overcome with the urge to lean down and take her lips in a passionate kiss, something to make them both forget the weight of the room. He wants nothing more than to sip at her lips as though she’s the fountain of youth, keeping them both tethered to the Earth with her divine powers.

“But I need to hear you say it.”

“Why?” She asks, voice small but furious. She looks up at him with more contempt that he’s ever seen. She’s flooded with ire and it’s because of him – just him. Not even Billy has sparked such deep hatred from her before.

He’s tempted whither to the ground, succumb to the blazing fire that is Anne Shirley. Die within the flames. But he can’t.

Not yet.

“Because if I go now, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering. I’ll be lost to the fantasy that maybe you loved me, too; maybe there was a chance and I let it foolishly slip between my fingers. I can’t go on living with _maybes_ and _could haves_.”

He reaches out for her but she flinches at the contact, hand ripping away from him as she stumbles backwards. Her lavender scent abandons him and he finds himself lost without it. Lost without her.

“But if you tell me, honest and true – if you release me from this, I’ll be free to release you, too.”

“You mean you’ll be free to take another lover,” She spits. Her words are like icy venom to his blood. He can feel the chill of it rush through his veins and into his heart, seizing it up.

“No,” He says. “Never.”

She takes another step back and he matches it, desperate to keep his proximity to her.

“There will never be another, Anne,” He confesses, “But I need to hear you say it. I need to know you don’t love me.”

Her jaw trembles, just slightly, clenching and unclenching as she undoubtable searches for words. The great Anne, whose pen is sharp as a sword, left wordless at his request. He should feel triumphant at the site but all he feels is the way his chest opens into the largest canyon Canada has ever known. It threatens to swallow the whole of Avonlea, the whole of Prince Edward Island.

“I cannot love you,” She says at last, voice firm in against his unwavering stare. “Are you satisfied, Gilbert? Can we end this?”

“No.”

He takes another step and, predictably, she backs away. Anyone looking on could mistake the scene for him chasing her around the table, because every time he tries to get closer she moves away. Together, they circle the table, spinning in a way that’s reminiscent of their dance so many months ago.

It’s all nothing but a painful memory and this moment mocks them for it. They had been so happy, so blissfully ignorant of what’s to come.

“What do you mean _no?”_

Would he have pursued her had he known?

“It’s not the same.”

Was the temporary feel of her kiss worth this heartbreak?

“You’re not making sense.”

Would he keep her letters to remember her by?

“You said _cannot._ It’s not the same.”

Now she rolls her eyes, scoffing in his direction. But he’s right, it’s not the same. Cannot and do not are not synonymous. Someone as bright as her _must_ know that.

“Oh, so now we’re debating semantics?” She spits. “Really, Gil, this is getting ridiculous.”

His knees buckle and suddenly he’s on the ground, kneeling before her. It’s the closest she’s let him come since they arrived from their walk down Lover’s Lane and he brings his fingers up to clutch at the fabric of her skirts. “Please, Anne.”

He’s aware that he’s begging, but it doesn’t matter. Begging is not beneath a man in the throes of desperation. In fact, it’s becoming of him.

“I don’t know what you’re asking of me,” She whispers. The fight seems to have gone from her, as well. At least, for now it has.

_“Why?”_

“It’s ruin,” She whispers.

The breath he takes catches in his throat when he looks up. Her face should be angry and hateful but all he can find is remorse. Thick tears sit on her lashes and he realizes she’s crying; the trembling of her jaw has moved to her lower lip and all he wants is to catch those tears. Catch them and brush them away until they’re gone and forgotten.

_“Anne."_

“ _Ruin_ , Gil. You’re studying to be a doctor. You come from a family with roots in this soil. You have your entire future in front of you, your entire life waiting for you. You said it yourself, you don’t want to be a country doctor. You want innovation and discovery, and yet here you are throwing it all away for some _orphan trash.”_

“How could you say such things?”

Her skirts shift as she tries to move away again, but he only holds on tighter as he loses his balance. She’s the only thing keeping him upright during this storm. She’s his anchor.

“How could you believe otherwise?”

“Anne,” He pleads, voice cracking. “You can’t believe that. I won’t allow you to. You’re perfect in every imaginable way. There’s no one sharper, no one more beautiful than you. Sure, you were orphaned as a child but that means nothing. You had no control over that! But this? You have control over this. _Please_ , Anne, let me make you into a princess. Let me make you into a _bride_.”

“It’s not just that,” Her voice warbles as she speaks and he watches as those tears finally spill out and down her cheeks. “We don’t – we wouldn’t _match_. All we do is fight, even now. Don’t you understand? You want a wife who will be happy to hang on your arm, to build a home for you. Someone who will just be happy being a wife. That’s not me. Can’t you see that? You only _think_ you love me.”

“I’ve loved you since the day we met, since the moment you bruised my cheek with your slate.” His voice is gritty with his own unshed tears. “I’ve loved you since I learned what loving was. And you’re wrong about those things. None of that matters to me.”

“It will.”

This time, when she pulls back Gilbert lets her. With nothing holding him up he lets his forehead sink onto the wooden floor, body bent over his knees as if he were praying in church.

“It will matter, Gil. You’ll resent me for making you give up your dreams. And I’ll wish we had never done it. I’m not a homemaker. Josie, she was right, I’m destined to be a spinster.”

When he raises himself back up, she’s turned away from him, arms clutched to her chest. Her small form shakes in the doorway

“I don’t want a homemaker, I just want you.”

His knees ache against the floor as he practically crawls over to her. “Please, Anne.” His own tears are spilling now, falling down the length of his face in rivers. “My Anne.” When he reaches her, he brings a hand up to gently rest against her forearm. She doesn’t shake him away, so he brings himself up to press a gentle kiss against her skin. Then another. “ _Please_. This is foolish. You and I, we _belong_ together. No one complements me the way you do. No one challenges me or makes me laugh like you. You make my heart sing.”

She still doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t speak either. The silence hangs heavy over them, threatening to crush them under the weight of it. Eventually, Gilbert stands, shifting until he’s standing directly in front of her. He wants to tuck her into his arms, hold her and never let go. He can’t, though. Not when she’s looking at him with eyes so full of remorse.

“Please say yes,” He whispers.

She closes her eyes on an inhale. Fresh tears squeeze out and follow the tracks already on her face. His arm twitches at his side, coming up to brush them away. It’s gentle, reminiscent of who they used to be. Their ghosts stand outside, giggling on the porch and kissing in the moonlight but their bodies remain rigid; waiting for the inevitable crash. He can’t help but hope that maybe – _maybe_ – she’s changed her mind. 

Then, she’s opening her eyes and speaking.

“I can’t.”

That’s it. The hole in his chest opens further, draining every last ounce of life and love out of him. The world crumbles beneath his feet as she steps away from him for the last time.

“I’m so desperately sorry.”

And then she’s gone, rushing through the house and up the stairs.

He listens to her go, boots heavy of the stairs and door loud when it connects with the frame. Locking her away, leaving him alone in the kitchen to pick up the pieces of his shattered soul.

**Author's Note:**

> What if, and hear me out, WHAT IF Gilbert proposed in the AWAE universe but it followed the same plot of the AOGG universe? Huh? Do you hate me yet?
> 
> I spent a long time mulling over what angst would look like for this fandom. A lot of our stuff is really fluffy and tender and I adore that. A lot of angst is written with a happy ending. I adore that, too. But there’s something really compelling about angst that doesn’t wrap up (at least not immediately) and there’s something satisfying about doing it well. I’m not sure if I did it justice, but this is my attempt. 
> 
> At first, I wanted to write something where they were fighting. It was going to be dumb nonsense but I wanted to write some fire. That turned into them arguing about love, which turned into a breakup, which turned into a failed proposal. THEN I was like “what if I made it cannon divergent to season 3?” And, well, here we are. I drew heavy influence from both universes, specifically Anne of Avonlea when Gil proposes on the bridge. I took that and reimagined what it might look like in AWAE with them actively courting and incorporated Anne’s insecurities. 
> 
> I’m sorry but I’m not sorry at all. 
> 
> I’d love to hear any and all thoughts and feedback on this work. I don’t really have a beta reader for this fandom so this is unbeta’d and has no outside feedback. Any and all mistakes are by yours truly (and if you notice any please don’t hesitate to point them out, I’ll go in and fix ASAP). 
> 
> I hope everyone is happy and healthy and safe during this time. I know the world is scary but we’ve got to have faith and have each other’s backs. Please come chat with me on Tumblr @ thelazyeye if you need a place to vent or chat.


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